"On the good side, it takes an officer 10 minutes to fill these out," local Fraternal Order of Police President Roger Webster said.

But timing appears to be everything that's wrong with the effort, according to Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich. He contends that the time officers spend on the cards could be time lost responding to emergencies, Paolello reported.

"There have been 100,000 of these things filled out in the last two years," Heimlich said. "When you add that up, that means that Cincinnati police have spent 16,000 hours of their time filling out forms."

After the timing issue, Heimlich cited the efficiency of the project. He said he doesn't expect much good to come from the cards, Paolello reported.

"Ninety-three thousand (of the cards) haven't been touched," Heimlich said. "Another 7,000 were from two years ago were given to a consultant. He hasn't done anything with them. And if he ever comes up with a solution, the City Council has no idea what they're going to do with the information."

Councilman John Cranley said the city only requires police to track the race, age and gender of a person -- three questions that can be asked in a few seconds, Paolello reported. Nonetheless, Heimlich said this is just one example of a bigger problem.

"This is just like the collaborative," he said. "It's the politically correct thing to do, but it doesn't achieve anything in terms of making this a safer city."

Added Webster: "If there are officers out there that are stopping people because of their race, there are things in place, procedures, policies in place that we can (use to) deal with those officers. I don't want them out there."

Cranley added that entering the information into a computer database would be more efficient and easier to evaluate, Paolello reported. But he also said that eliminating information that the public is concerned about isn't the answer.